The Djokovic- Murray Era is already upon us. Do not be surprised if we up end with at least 2 Novak - Andy GS finals next year. I feel like they are the ones dominating the tour right now. They may continue this dominace in 2013. I don't see Roger dominating next year, although he can still surprise us. I think it will be hard for Rafa to come back from this awful injury. he will struggle in some matches at the beginning which is expected. Although once it gets to the clay season, that's when Rafa is at his best. Andy will have to cope with Rafa being back - 2013 will be a very interesting year indeed

Provided Andy stays #3 and Rafa #4 for a while, they will not meet in the semis. I personally did not like Andy being drawn on Rafa' side as I had the same worries as others before the matches and often it happened as predicted: Andy somehow crumbled. And of course Rafa's injury was and still is a big advantage for Andy's chances in the big tournaments. A comment on Federer: Last year around the same time many of us as well as neutral experts did not see Federer winning another GS nor claiming the number 1 spot again. Therefore I hesitate to rule him completely out for the near future. And one more word about Andy's other serious rivals apart from the usual suspects. Without knowing too much about all these technical aspects, which others can much better assess, my impression as an amateur observer is that the big hitters respectively power players cause most problems when they are on fire. But I also remember last year's match vs. berdych in Paris when there was this "ball gate" with Andy having break points. This year it was the thing with the cap in NY and altogether this adds up to my dislike regardless his abilities.

The thing about Berdych, or any other "bad match up", is that it is just more annoying and frustrating to lose to a player who is lower in the rankings than one who is higher, so those losses haunt us more.

An obvious issue is that sometimes it means an earlier exit than seedings predict, but generally it's just that losing to someone higher in the rankings is undesirable, but more honourable, and you don't get the press saying stuff, or other fans calling you an idiot. Actually, those things still happened if Andy lost in the semis of a slam when seeded 3rd or 4th, but not as much as if losing to a perfectly talented person playing better on the day.

Hopefully Ivan and Andy will have been watching how Nole takes on Berdych and get some pointers. But at the end of the day, tennis is not just about the higher ranked, or generally better player beating the lower ranked one, or there wouldn't be much point in having all of these tournaments on different surfaces etc.

Andy did have an advantage in the US Open in that he was able to adapt his game better to the wind, but I recall him saying that when the wind dropped, he felt he was slower than Nole to re-adapt his game to the calmer conditions, so it works both ways.

The thing about Berdych, or any other "bad match up", is that it is just more annoying and frustrating to lose to a player who is lower in the rankings than one who is higher, so those losses haunt us more.

An obvious issue is that sometimes it means an earlier exit than seedings predict, but generally it's just that losing to someone higher in the rankings is undesirable, but more honourable, and you don't get the press saying stuff, or other fans calling you an idiot. Actually, those things still happened if Andy lost in the semis of a slam when seeded 3rd or 4th, but not as much as if losing to a perfectly talented person playing better on the day.

Hopefully Ivan and Andy will have been watching how Nole takes on Berdych and get some pointers. But at the end of the day, tennis is not just about the higher ranked, or generally better player beating the lower ranked one, or there wouldn't be much point in having all of these tournaments on different surfaces etc.

Andy did have an advantage in the US Open in that he was able to adapt his game better to the wind, but I recall him saying that when the wind dropped, he felt he was slower than Nole to re-adapt his game to the calmer conditions, so it works both ways.

yep...good points.

at the end of the day...we want the sport to be competitive...that means players ranked lower for various reasons having a chance of upsetting the predictable. Otherwise whats the point? just let the 2 top seeds contest 1 match...lol exciting huh?i want Andy to win every match he plays.... but he wont...and would be a poor reflection on the sport if he did.that said, i think its no coincidence the top 4 have dominated slams....the slams separate the best most talented players from the rest. not always...but typically. the current top 4 have arguably raised the bar in all skills/subskills within mens tennis hence all the fab 4 talk etc. it does seem like a step up in quality from all previous eras

As if you have ANY idea how any of us love Andy, Emma.I find that really silly of you to say and if we fight about this, then it will turn out to be a very ugly fight..

To your first statement, sorry that you didn't get it but that was precisely the point I was making.

As to ugly fight, I have more interest in tennis itself than to get into some meaningless fights with people here, which achieves nothing at the end of the day, frankly. But no worries - I am not a complete regular here, so having any kind of discussions going forward is less to none.

He played that way for an entire year, and this year we've seen flashes of it. I still maintain that 2011 represents Nole's best and he can achieve that level again. I am not saying he'll repeat 2011 and win 3 slams and 5 masters again; that was record-setting. But I think he can get his level higher than it was this year. Time will tell. I don't claim to be certain of anything in this regard; that's just my opinion.

For me "in the zone"is a state a player might get in for one match or even one tournament, but I don't see it as existing for basically a year of a player's career. I see that more like reaching potential. And perhaps riding momentum. In sports, that's important too of course. . I still think we've seen close to some of his best, on grass, this year. Maybe not, maybe he goes higher now. I feel like he'll win 2 slams next year. That's my guesstimate. I'd say AO and Wimbles or Wimbles and USO. But who knows!? It'll be interesting to see how he matches up with Rafa, who will be back and on a mission. I'd like to see Andy beat Fed and Rafa at the slams more. I know he's got a couple wins over Raf, but I think one was a retirement, so next year will tell us a lot about Andy, methinks.

Given that the top ten seems to be getting older, I think these guys have a good future in front of them, even though they're turning 26 next year.

For me the best of anything has to be something that continues and consistent. If it rises up all of a sudden and then goes away just as sudden than it's more of an exception and sometimes regarded as a fluke. A bank (or anything else) that gives the best customer service is likely to give it each year and they often do but if they perform very well one year and goes back to slightly above average and stays there that way, then that would be their normal or best and consistent service. You can't just take a machine's highest form as its best service and it's the same with human beings as well if it can't sustain its level for a longer period of time. Sometimes some of these sudden runs, for example, Nole's can last a bit longer than usual but the elements are still the same and it will be broken by someone else in the future.

For the same reason I stated that Andy's best is yet to come as he has not been all that consistent all these years. Yes, consistent enough to be ranked 4 but his overall performance throughout each year has been very up and down and his game was also, at times, a bit unpredictable as it varied tournament to tournament. Yes, we might have seen a few glimpses of Andy's best at Wimbledon, Olympics and USO but unless he does that on a consistent level and produces just as good results, we can't say that was his best. That's why I say that his best is either yet to come or that he'd probably stay the same. Not everyone can produce their consistent best.

Hmmm, Nole's H2H versus Berd is 1-10 in Nole's favour. Only 4 of those 11 matches were in 2011. So the other two thirds of their meetings weren't when Nole was playing top notch. Nole has wins over him in 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2012. Rafa's versus Berd is 3-12. Fed versus Berd is 5-11. So Berd's gotten more wins off all the other top four guys than Nole. It's just match up I suspect.

But having said all that, the matches aren't cakewalks either; they're tight sometimes, so of course it's very possible Berd will get some more wins going forward, maybe even at WTF, which is a faster lower bouncing surface. Tomas could be dangerous in those conditions.

But not only mental. Definitely it has to do with match up: lefty, two-handed backhand, topspin, able to neutralize Fed's own backhand. Tougher physically too. Myriad factors, imo.

Berdych is no problem for Nole - I am actually not arguing that (not also the point) though Berdcyh does have a major win over him. I was stating who I find as Andy's main rivals. It doesn't matter if Nole was able to figure Berdych out even though both Andy and Nole play pretty similar game and perhaps Andy will too, but right now Berdych is still a puzzle for Andy to solve. That's why every one has different enemies and for that reason Nole his own nemesis.

Nadal causes all sorts of problems for Federer, Nole causes problems for Nadal and Andy causes problems for Nole. Federer, I am sure, fancies his chances much more against Nole and Andy than he does against Nadal at a Slam level; similarly, Nole fancies his chances against Nadal much more than he does against Andy or Federer. For example, you can say that Nole was really tired in the fifth set of USO final and had to take a break when Andy was 5-2 up, but I'd say Nole employed a tactic to throw Andy off mentally by giving him too much time to think about things. He wouldn't have done it if he had better handle of things, but obviously, Andy was already in Nole's territory and was dominating it and that's a problem for Nole and will be a problem for him in the future.

Federer vs Nadal isn't a rivalry as Nadal simply dominates Federer. There was no rivalry between Nadal vs Nole last year either as Nole simply dominated Nadal on every surface. Though people would say that those are great rivalries because they are so obsessed with those top four guys, I just don't see it that way because if you look at it percentage-wise. they are pretty one-sided. Just like people loved Sampras vs Agassi rivalry in the 90s; in reality, it was almost non existent.

So anyway, these are basically match-up issues that involve both mental and technical aspects of things and they vary for everyone.